Titanfall: Bloodied Thorns
by Royal Eclipse Vanguard
Summary: The Militia is advancing across the Frontier, obtaining valuable resources and crushing the IMC in substantial defeats. Now even Vice Admiral Graves has defected to the militants and pirates. All IMC forces are being called back to regroup with the main fleet, but not everyone can make it. Some are left behind, fending for themselves on Militia run planets against impossible odds.


Small plumes of dust rose into the air as bullets peppered the war torn streets of Free Rise city. Distant hollers of excitement were almost drowned out by the sporadic gunfire, but each call was still clear as day. Every single one, just as the rifles and hunting parties, were aimed at Valia Crow. She vaulted through the open window of a housing complex, narrowly dodging a hail of lead as it flew behind her. She had to be quick without a single falter, for one mess up and she would be on the ground in a pool of her own blood. The pursuers amassed in the dozens, built of mostly Militia grunt squadrons and several Militia pilots accompanied by their own Titans. No matter what she did, there was no way Valia could ever take on these numbers alone.

She exited the building through a side door that lead to a trash filled alley, engaging her booster pack that as strapped to her lower back to lift off the cracked pavement and fly up to another window. Valia sailed straight through with ease, only to find two grunts rushing in from an adjacent doorway. Clearly surprised by her sudden appearance, they stopped in their tracks with armfuls of jamming equipment.

Valia used her inertia to kick the one up front with extra force, sending him flying to the wall. The second grunt attempted to draw his weapon but wasn't fast enough as Valia knocked it to the side and jabbed him in the throat. He stumbled back before having three rounds pumped into his chest from her Hammond p2011 pistol. She didn't waste any time watching him fall to the floor, and instead averted her pistol to the still recovering man she had previously kicked. Just as he got to his knees she squeezed the trigger; a second later he clutched his neck and collapsed back to the wall.

She pulled the jamming device back upright from its knocked over position and knelt beside it, opening the side terminal and grabbing her data knife from its sheath. The intention must have been to set up and E.M.P. her armor systems as she passed by. Not that it mattered anymore. The knife slid into the port and changed the settings as its readout raised in number. When it reached 248, the screen turned blue to signal the hack was successful. Valia quickly set the electromagnetic pulse to go off in ten seconds and crawled over to one of the dead grunts, unlatching the belt of grenades from his chest. She primed them to go off simultaneously with the E.M.P. and chucked them out the window she came from. Four second later the pulse activated and disturbed all electric Militia equipment within a 40 foot radius, scrambling radios and HUD visors. At the same time the grenades impacted and went off in a group of troops following her trail as they marched through the alley.

Valia, clad in her IMC combat uniform akin only to Pilots who use Marksman Rifles and Snipers, stepped out of the window and spun around, boosting to the roof top. Far below were dismembered limbs and screaming soldiers, all torn apart by shrapnel. She took the brief moment to examine the terrain ahead, along with the mild amber sky and forested mountain peaks in the distance. Free Rise city, the market hub of planet RO-04 (or Black Glacier as the locals called it) sat between the Roulis Mountain Range and a steep, parallel cliff edge; dropping into a blanket of soft pink clouds and hostile land about half a mile further below. Nothing was visible underneath this heavy cover of clouds, and the pit stretched to a fifth of RO-04's surface. Nicknamed the Abyss of Roses for its alluring top and hidden thorns below. Free Rise itself was largely inspired by the famous Angel City when it came to architecture, using the same building designs and easy transport housing cubicles. In fact, if it weren't for the crimson leafed plant life and amber atmosphere, many would be unable to tell the difference between Angel and Free Rise.

Valia had chosen her path and sprinted forth, leaping from each rooftop to the next in graceful, trained strides. Her breathe was labored, dragging on with each minute, and she didn't know how much longer she could continue fleeing. Hopefully that E.M.P. would buy her a few seconds of safety.

Off to her left, a duo of titans—one Stryder hefting a XOTBR-16 Chaingun and the other an Atlas class with a 40mm Cannon—spotted Valia maneuvering the roofs. They both ran in lumbering gaits through their own street three buildings down, keeping pace with the lone IMC pilot. The Stryder, with its smaller and nimbler frame, rushed in front and leveled its massive Chaingun her direction, pumping out high velocity 1.6 inch slugs. Each round tore through the metal market buildings and air around her, sending debris flying.

While running, the titan's sideway's aim would be inaccurate, but all it took was one lucky shot to end the chase. Valia, driven solely by fear, leapt to the back of a large billboard that hid her from the Militia Titan's view and quickly activated her cloaking. The shimmering wave melted across her body and crept into every crevice, bending light to create an illusion that she was invisible. Bullets punched through the thin billboard as Valia jumped back onto the rooftops and dug her heel into the ground, slowing down so that she could take a hard right while the titans unknowingly shot at a ghost up ahead.

Before she could take her first step, the crack of a kraber-AP sniper rifle echoed through the district. A single round landed several feet off of Valia's foot, shattering the concrete it hit with extreme force. Valia's face turned pale under her helmet at the mere thought of a kraber. That beast of an anti-material rifle would rip her arm off at 1k meters easy, and no matter where it hit she would be guaranteed dead. But…why then did the militia sniper miss, and horribly at that? Any skilled pilot, especially a marksman, could notice a cloaking device if they looked closely for it was really only made to fool titan camera visuals. Unless she was dealing with a rookie; quite plausible seeing as the Militia relied on numbers and not so much skill. The IMC struck fear with their advanced infantry and Pilots, each trained in finesse and combat tactics, but lacked what the Militia had. People, lots and lots of people.

She quickly slid behind a multi-ventilation shaft, its chrome bulk big enough to conceal her crouching figure. The Longbow-DMR unclipped from the right side of her waist and hip where it had hung just behind her arm. Valia lifted it into her gloved hands and wrapped her fingers around the molded grips, pushing the butt of the rifle against her breast. Three bullets still remained in the magazine, not including the one in the chamber. There was no time for caution; she needed to dispose of this enemy sniper now before any more troops overwhelmed her, which meant betting her luck on the fact that this sniper possibly had little experience in the field. The cloak still had time before it needed to shut off and recharge, giving her an advantage. It would take the rookie longer to locate her gun and head as she peered around the corner.

Valia calmed her breathing and put the 6x scope to her faceplate, scanning the buildings in the direction she had originally come from. It wasn't hard to find the perpetrator, he may have been in a balcony under the shadow of an overhang but he had also left his entire body out in the open, not bothering to shoot from a window or behind a wall. The crosshairs of her Longbow lined up on his head and coughed out one shot. Bits of skull and gray matter splattered on the glass behind him as he crumpled backwards.

Satisfied with her kill, she spun around and stepped off the rooftop towards a small plaza. On the road below was a five man squad of grunts, all dressed in their—oddly uniform—brown combat gear, some even had extra rockets strapped to their backs. They shouted at their target soaring above, firing potshots at the lone IMC pilot. Valia emptied the last of her Longbow magazine on their heads while boosting up to the side of a hastily built watch tower that sat in the center of the plaza. Two of the grunts toppled over, one unmoving and the other clutching his shoulder in agony.

She landed in the open watch room, face to face with a tower guard and his fellow female watchman to Valia's right. The first guard was shoved out the windowless tower, falling on his head with a sickening crack. The second raised her R101 Carbine, but before she could pull the trigger, Valia grabbed both her wrist and gun, pushing them into the air. Valia brought a knee to the militants groin and jerked the carbine from her hands. The grunt was then riddled with several bullets, slumping against the wall in a fresh pool of blood.

Charging the tower was the remnants of the grunt squad, so Valia leaned out the window and expended the carbine's ammunition, picking off two more soldiers. Just as the rifle ran dry, the last grunt turned tail and "retreated". He would live another day.

Valia climbed on top of the tower and engaged her thrusters, meaning to cross the gap and reach another building ledge. However, nothing goes as planned. Just after jumping, the Stryder Titan she had previously avoided dashed from a side street, skidding to a halt in her path. With little time to react, Valia braced herself and crashed into the Titan, grabbing a hold of anything to stop from sliding off.

As she feared, the hulking machine of death deployed a thickening smokescreen. In two seconds the screen would electrify and fry her like a bug on a lightbulb. She tried to escape impending doom by leaping off the titan, but her luck had run out. The surge of lethal electricity caught her for half a second. Valia blacked out before she hit the ground.


End file.
